Released:  06/15/2001

Version: Film

Rated: PG-13

Main Cast: Iain Glen, Daniel Craig, Leslie Phillips (I), Angelina Jolie

What could be better than an action flick with a hot chick? Well, I don’t know about you, but I can think of lots of things. This movie’s best features were the special effects and the interesting fight scenes. But first, we’ll talk about the movie and the "plot."

If you somehow missed out on who Lara is, then you must be illiterate. She’s a big busted videogame character from Eidos and Core. As of this writing, she’s had around half a dozen games on various platforms. They’re interesting, but they’re almost all the same. But, enough of that…back to the review:

We open with Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie) in a tomb trying to get some kind of golden artifact. She acts like something ought to happen and all of a sudden a wall explodes and a giant robot attacks her. This is a cool scene. Even though the robot is almost certainly CGI, it’s done quite well and it fits in with its surroundings. She finally ruins it and we find that it was all an exercise. It was a "game." But it was cool.

We then meet Lara’s employees. There’s some kind of techie/geek (Noah Taylor) with a neat English accent that built and controlled the robot, known as Simon. And then there’s a butler named Hillary(?) (Chris Barrie) that seems to have been with the Croft family for a long time even though he seems young.

The movie centers around a group called the "Illuminati." They "worship" light and time. Anyway, they want a key that will help them recover two pieces of a triangle that was broken many years ago. It was broken because it held the power to control time and it’s possessor could travel back and forth through time. Lara’s mission is to destroy the two pieces so that no one can use it for evil purposes. Her father (who is dead and whom Lara has a fixation on) had already recovered the key, which looks like a fancy large pocket watch. He's played by Jon Voight.

Needless to say, the Illuminati want the key and Lara’s mansion is attacked by a large troop of what looks like the Black Ops. They break in when she’s doing some kind of calisthenics on a bungie cord from the ceiling. This is a cool fight scene too. She jumps and bounces all over the room kicking these guys butts. But there’s too many even for Lara. While she beats up some, others take the key.

She knows who stole it (or at least suspects who) due to a previous meeting when she was trying to learn more about the key. She also had an idea as to where the first piece of the triangle is because of a story her father once told her. And because of some clever notes left to her from her father. And there’s a time limit as to when these pieces can be recovered. The planets have to be in a certain order for the pieces to be released. Eventually, all the planets will be aligned…

Anyway, she flies to the first place and is led to a spot in a ruined city by a ghost/hallucination that has a flower. Then she falls into the temple that the bad guys want to get in to. When they release the triangle, they also set off some sort of trap that makes the statues come alive. This is kind of cool because it is similar to the videogames. I think they took some of the creatures from the game for this part.

The creatures are all destroyed and Lara gets convinced that she ought to join forces with the bad guys so she can see her dead dad. Thus, she doesn’t destroy the piece she has like she ought and it stays predictable.

They go to an ice lake and find another city. Lara gets the piece and the bad guy promptly kills her boyfriend(?) (played by Daniel Craig) so that she will show him how to make the pieces fit together. She does, and then she goes back to see her daddy, who isn’t surprised by the appearance of his now grown daughter. DUH! He tells her to destroy it, yada yada yada.

She saves her friend with the time thing and then destroys it. And then she kicks Manfred Powell's (the bad guy boss) tail. The end shows her in a dress and refers to the beginning. Thus, the end is sort of good. It wraps up everything and there isn’t any loose ends.

Now for a quick run-down of the good and bad points of this movie:

This movie is for those adolescents that like big busted chicks running around in tight clothing kicking butt. The movie has no real twists and the plot is boring. If you want to see an action flick with chicks, rent "Charlie’s Angels." It’s more interesting.

STORY:    (I think you heard enough about the dumb story already!)

VIOLENCE:   (There's some rather violent deaths in this movie and some of the fight scenes may be too rough for young viewers.)

SEXUAL CONTENT:    (Yep, those shower scenes were naughty!)

SFX:    (This area of the movie is the best. They did a pretty good job for the most part.)

LANGUAGE:    (As is usual in movies nowadays, there must be some swearing. Luckily, this one doesn't have lots of it.)